Come Together Page 8

  * * *

  Confessions: No.3 Bondage

  Place: my bedroom, Matt’s pad.

  Time: 3 a.m. 13 April 1997.

  Matt’s always warned me off repeats. His thinking on the matter can be summarised as follows:

  a) The whole point of a one-night stand is that it lasts for one night

  b) Repeat encounters breed familiarity

  c) Familiarity defeats the point of being single

  And this was the moment I learnt to accept his word on the matter as final.

  There I was, spreadeagled on my back on the bed, naked as the day I was born. Sitting astride me, equally naked, was Hazel Atkinson. Atkinson and I had met down at Barry’s house on New Year’s Eve. We’d sloped off upstairs some time in the early hours of New Year’s Day, bagged a room and locked the door behind us. I’d emerged the next morning round seven and persuaded Matt to get up and get me back to London as soon as possible. It wasn’t that the night had been bad; it hadn’t. And it wasn’t that I hadn’t liked Atkinson; I had. It was more that the night had been weird.

  Atkinson has a penchant for activities that people of my parents’ generation would describe as ‘kinky’. Or, put another way, she enjoys tying men up and making them squeal. Now, I’m no prude. I’m more than happy to give something a go, even if that something borders on the psychologically disturbed. So back at New Year, I’d let her tie me up and, sure enough, I’d squealed. The best I can say about the experience is that it was educational. But, like Latin at school, it wasn’t something I wanted to specialise in. End result: I hadn’t returned Atkinson’s calls and had made a point of failing to attend any party I knew she’d been invited to.

  Silly me.

  11.30 p.m. 12 April 1997, however, and who did I see through my drunken eyes, standing at the bar in Klaxon? None other than Hazel Atkinson – looking great, looking available, and looking straight back at me. Normally, of course, I’d have run a mile. Barry had told me that Atkinson, following my strictly adhered to avoidance technique, had grown to regard me as somewhere below an amoeba in the chain of evolution. But I was drunk and I’d been blown out so many times in the last hour that I’d dismissed the idea of pulling from my mind. So when she came over and talked to me and so obviously wasn’t angry with me, what else could I have done but invite her back to mine?

  So back to the bed.

  She’d tied my hands to the bed-head, my feet to the base. But that was cool; I knew what was coming next. A bit of chastisement. A load of word games. Her telling me what to say and me then saying it. And then would come the good part of the proceedings: the sex – surprisingly, and pleasantly, straightforward.

  Shame is, Atkinson saw things differently.

  ‘Right, you piece of shit,’ she told me. ‘I’m going to teach you a lesson you’re never going to forget.’

  I’d been here before. ‘I’ve been a bad boy, haven’t I?’ I asked, playing along, finding the whole routine every bit as ridiculous as I had first time round. ‘I’m a sick puppy and I have to be trained.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ She glared down at me. ‘When did you say Matt was back from Bristol?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ I said, confused. ‘About nine.’

  She checked her watch. ‘Seven hours. Good. You might make it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  She didn’t reply, just climbed off the bed and started to get dressed.

  ‘Do you know what your problem is, Jack?’ she asked as she sat on the side of the bed and pulled her boots on. I tried to wriggle my hand free, couldn’t. Tried my other hand and my feet. No luck there, either. The tights she’d used to bind me were just that: tight. She stood up. ‘You pissed off the wrong girl.’

  And with that, she walked out of the bedroom and, a few seconds later, I heard the front door slam.

  And I waited.

  And soon the cramp set in.

  And my mouth dried out to cracking point.

  And I waited some more.

  A lot more.

  Until I realised she wasn’t coming back.

  A whole shoal of thoughts swam round my mind that night. I doubt I’ve had a concentrated period of plain thinking like that in my life. Most of them were nonsense. Paranoia that I was going to die, or that Matt would never return, or that Atkinson would, armed with a bull whip and an electric nutcracker. But the Big Thought which kept surfacing throughout was this: if I die, I’ll die without having found the person I want to spend my life with. She’ll still be out there, alone, not having found me either. And there’ll be no one to blame but myself. Perhaps this was the lesson Atkinson wanted me to learn.

  Finally, I saw Matt standing in the doorway, stunned.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ I managed to croak.

  ‘Don’t say what?’

  ‘I told you so.’

  He sat down on the bed and started to unfasten my feet.

  ‘Atkinson?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Thought so.’

  * * *

  Going Out

  I experience an unusual sensation as I’m shutting Matt’s front door behind me. My stomach feels like something’s nesting in it. Something with feathers. Something that tickles. At first, I put it down to drinking in the afternoon on a mostly empty stomach, and consider stopping off en route for a bag of chips. But finally, I recognise it for what it is: nerves. Nerves and excitement. The cause is obvious: Amy. Or, more precisely, going on A Date with Amy. As much as I wish differently, there’s no other possible explanation. I’m interested. In her. In seeing what A Date with her will be like. In seeing whether I’m still capable of pulling this kind of stuff off, or even enjoying it.

  Zack’s is great. Zack’s I love. Truly, if Zack’s was a woman, then I wouldn’t be meeting Amy there tonight. There’d be no need. I’d be married to Zack’s and raising little Zackettes on an island far, far, far away. It’s all sofas, small tables, big open spaces, dim lighting and chilled music. And just for an added bonus, it’s near Matt’s pad.

  A five-minute pavement hike gets me there good and early, round 7.30. It’s fairly quiet for a Friday. But the night’s still young. All those other people with real jobs are probably still trapped in post-work drinks, yet to make the break back into their personal lives.

  I perform a quick table scan, select one in the corner, away from the pool table, not too near the music speakers, away from distraction. I sling Matt’s jacket over the chair against the wall, bagging my seat. I’ll make sure Amy sits opposite me. That way, her viewing choice will be limited to me or the brickwork, giving me a fighting chance of holding her attention.

  I take my wallet and go and barfly a while, chat to Janet, who owns the place. And Zack? I once asked; I once got told. Zack’s Janet’s ex-husband. He ran off with his secretary. Janet stung him in court for a fat wodge of cash, named the bar she bought with the proceeds after him, just to rub it in. Janet’s been thirty-six for the three years I’ve known her and shows no sign of getting older. She’s fun, some might say eccentric, and we pick up our conversation where we left it Tuesday night, like I’ve only been gone five minutes. I’m drinking the second bottle of Labatt’s she’s donated to the Starving Artist Fund, when I hear a voice behind me.

  The voice says, ‘Hi, Jack.’

  And I check out Janet’s expression.

  And Janet’s expression says, Lucky you.

  And I turn round and see that she’s right: I am.

  Amy’s standing there with the kind of wide smile that makes it impossible not to smile right on back. This kind of rattles me. A good sort of rattle, though, it has to be said – more baby than snake. Last time I saw her, what with all the freaking out she was doing about her recently deceased sex life and her unrequited crush on Matt, her lips had been all squished together like, for want of a kinder description, a pair of mating slugs. Now, though – well, I hav
e to, and am more than glad to, admit – they’ve got a K and an I and an S and an S written all over them. Clothes-wise, she’s wearing a funky little black skirt and grab-me grey top. She looks good. Seriously. Beautiful. And confident. She holds my stare and, as she does, my nerves come surging back. I smile, then the words come pouring out.

  ‘Hi, Amy,’ I say. ‘You look great.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s good to see you.’

  ‘What are you having?’

  ‘Vodka and tonic.’

  ‘You want lemon in that?’ Janet asks, fixing the drink.

  ‘Lime. Thanks.’

  Janet slices and slots a wedge into the glass. I take out my wallet, but Janet, bless her, just waves her hand, passes the drink to Amy. ‘Don’t worry, Jack,’ she tells me, ‘I’ll put it on your tab.’

  ‘Thanks,’ tell her, meaning it.

  Personal memo: give Janet that painting you’re always promising her. Apart from friendship and everything, it’s not like you don’t owe it to her in kind.

  Amy and I look at each other for a few seconds and she takes a sip of her drink, then looks round the bar. It’s weird how you can spend a night with someone, getting smashed and listening to them pouring their heart out into the small hours of the morning, and then still end up suffering a silence laced with apprehension next time you meet. Just talk, I tell myself. Kill the silence off.

  ‘I ditched my jacket over there,’ I tell her, pointing to the table.

  We go and sit down, both light cigarettes, inhale, exhale. We pick up our drinks and take swigs.

  Finally, she says, ‘I guess I should start by apologising.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Acting like a complete berk last Friday night.’

  This is my prompt to disagree, to no-no-no-you-weren’t it a bit. She looks genuinely embarrassed, so it would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But it would be pointless. She’d just end up thinking I got off on emotional outpourings, that I was an emotion junkie. Which I don’t and am not. Not in this situation, anyway. Not now. Not with someone I hardly know. Not when it was Matt she was upset about.

  ‘Saturday morning,’ I correct.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Saturday morning. You acted like a complete berk last Saturday morning. Round about six. Friday night you were fun. Saturday morning, too, for that matter. Right up till six.’

  ‘When I did the berk bit?’

  ‘When you did the berk bit.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, anyway.’

  ‘It’s okay. Everyone’s allowed to go berk from time to time. It’s one of our democratic rights.’

  ‘It still scared the hell out of you, though, didn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ I lie, ‘of course not.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She smiles for the first time since we sat down. ‘So I shouldn’t read anything into you sprinting off out of my flat like your arse was on fire?’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Was that just your way of greeting the dawn? Your regular morning routine?’

  I laugh and, as I do, I remember how it was with her last Friday. The fact that I spoke more to her than I did to Matt on his birthday – an act of treachery I can still hardly credit myself with. The fact that she cracked me up. And, most telling of all, the fact that when the fork of freak-out lightning fried her brain, I actually hung around and tried to calm her down, put off my then inevitable runner for a whole half hour. I remember why I liked her. Because she was direct. Because there wasn’t any bullshit. Because she was the first girl I’d met in ages who I hadn’t ended up playing psyche games with.

  ‘Okay,’ I reply, ‘I did a bunk. But it wasn’t because of you. I was just shattered, that’s all.’ I risk a laugh. ‘Jesus, we must have got through the best part of a bottle of whisky once we got back to yours. My brain felt like someone was using it as a pin cushion.’

  ‘I didn’t feel too hot myself,’ she admits. ‘Went for the Banana Recovery Plan.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Banana Recovery Plan,’ she repeats. ‘You know …’ But since I obviously don’t, she spells it out for me: ‘Bath And Nurofen And No Alcohol.’

  I smile. ‘Have to remember to try that next time.’

  ‘Works every time.’

  A silence follows her words. It’s like we’ve dealt with the tricky bit – the bit about her flipping out about Matt and me skipping out. And, what’s more, we’ve done it without mentioning Matt’s name. That leaves just the two of us.

  So where do we go from here? Options are multiple, of course. Freedom of speech and all that. Problem is, the three topics I want to raise – the me and the her and the how we get it together – are the only three topics that are strictly out of bounds. There’s a time and a place for such things. And Zack’s at just gone eight is neither. There’s other stuff to come first. More drink. More talk. A meal. A cab ride home. Be patient, my brother, I tell myself. Be patient and thou shalt get thy just reward. And so I open my mouth, primed to fire off some quip to turn the conversation liquid again. Only Janet shows up and shatters the silence for me, offering to get us more drinks. Well, it would be rude not to. We graciously accept and Janet saunters back towards the bar, a conversation piece if ever I saw one.

  ‘So tell me,’ Amy says, briefly turning round and glancing at Janet. ‘How come I’ve been coming here about once a month for the last year and the woman behind the bar doesn’t even recognise me, and yet she knows your name and knows you well enough to run a tab for you when it clearly says on the sign above the bar "No Credit"?’

  ‘Because I practically live here. Matt’s place is just round the corner. Janet’s a mate.’

  And, with the log-jam busted, the conversation flows on. We talk and, as we talk, I play the Poirot game, gradually filling in the blanks in our drunken conversation last week. By the time we’re stepping out of the cab and walking into Hot House, I’ve got Amy’s history taped. Her curriculum vitae, now filed under Pend, reads:

  Name: Amy Crosbie

  Age: 25

  Marital Status: SINGLE

  Qualifications: English, Geography and Art A-levels; degree in Textiles

  Employment History: Various temp jobs since graduation

  Relationship History: Vague. One exception; co-habited; now history

  Other Skills: Good talker; great smile; fantastic tits

  Inside Hot House, we get shown to our table by this foxy waitress in regulation short black skirt and tight white top. It’s a case of eyes-right when she’s on my left and eyes-left when she’s on my right. Girls, I swear to God, can sense you scoping another female. Sixth sense. ESP (Enemy Skirt Perception). So as the foxette sits us down and gives us the menus to check out, I consciously develop a blind spot for her. She doesn’t exist. Only Amy. Honey, I only have eyes for you …

  I bluff the wine menu, select a mid-price bottle and take the lead by ordering the cheapest main course on the menu, hoping she’ll take the hint and not order lobster. We tuck in and we talk. I let her in on my life: surface stuff; rehearsed; my standard girl chat. What I paint. Where I hang out. I do the politician: let her talk and discover what she’s into, then bounce it straight back at her. Subliminal message: I’m your man. Vote Jack Rossiter for a Better World.

  ‘What about you, though?’ she asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You. YOU. What makes you tick? What do you want from life?’

  ‘That’s a big question,’ I stall.

  ‘So, give me a big answer.’

  Of course, I do have an answer to that question. Everyone does. And the answer’s always the same: love. There are things I want, things I don’t tell anyone in case they don’t happen. But they’re One Day things. As in, one day I want to fall in love. One day I want to marry the woman I fall in love with. One day I want a family and a home. one day I want my kids to come charging into the bedroom at six on a Sunday morning and wake me up the same as I did with my parents. But One Day isn’t now. For all I know, One Day might neve
r happen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I reply lamely. ‘Fun. I suppose that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘so what was the last proper fun you had?’

  ‘Easy,’ I say, a smile settling on my face. ‘I went to Hamleys to get a birthday present for my nephew.’

  ‘You’ve got a nephew?’

  ‘Yeah, my elder brother’s. He’s cool. My nephew, that is. My brother, Billy, well he’s a bit … I don’t know. Me and Kate don’t really have much to do with him.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well, he’s nice and everything. In fact, fuck it, he’s really nice. But he’s a lot older. He’s into different stuff to us. Late thirties. Married and settled down before he was my age. Met this girl and fell in love and that was that. Next thing, he’s got kids and his life’s over. Crazy.’

  ‘You’re not into the love and kids deal, then?’

  ‘Not settling down. Not now. No way.’

  ‘I see.’ She stares at me for a moment, and I can’t work out what she’s thinking. Then her face relaxes and she asks, ‘So what did you get him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your nephew?’

  ‘Oh, John. I got him this radio-controlled car. One of those American drag racer things. Goes like shit off a shovel. Me and Matt thought we’d better give it a test run before I posted it off. You know, in case it was crap, or something.’

  ‘Right,’ she says, stifling a laugh, ‘in case it was crap. Not because you wanted to have a go.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I say, totally failing to hide my grin. ‘We’re adults, for Christ’s sake. I was just thinking of John. I mean, there’s nothing worse than getting a crumby present, is there? We had to make sure it worked.’ Now she’s shaking her head. ‘Anyway,’ I continue, ‘we got it out in the garden and worked out the controls and gave it a spin. And then we set up a couple of jumps for it. And—’

  Her jaw drops. ‘You set up jumps?’

  ‘Yeah. Nothing too complicated, though. Just these planks from the shed. We propped them up with bricks. Just to check out the suspension.’

  ‘Have you actually got round to posting it to John yet?’ she interrupts.